A Very Special Day
by Manchester
Summary: Xander has some extremely strange encounters on a particular day of a specific month for several years. Can you say “paranoia”, people?
1. First Year

Xander Harris politely held open the door at the entrance of the Los Angeles mall, as the trio leaving the shopping center passed by the man into the passageway leading to the sidewalk in front of the mall building.

The first person through the door, an extremely beautiful blonde woman stunningly dressed, gave him a thankful smile and seemed to totally ignore his eyepatch, which only increased Xander's good mood at being so close to a true Hollywood fox.

The next passer-by, a big lug of a guy, nodded politely as he brushed past Xander and crowded right after the woman, as if to declare to the world and the slightly scary man holding open the door that she was his and nobody's else.

Xander just maintained his easy grin and continued keeping the door ajar, as the last of the trio skipped through the entranceway, a pretty girl on the cusp of her teens who was clearly part of the family that were now all out of the way. Xander casually stepped through the entry while letting go of the door, and then he abruptly froze.

The Sunnydale survivor stood unmoving in the doorway, until the closing door smacked him on his ass. This caused him to stumble forward a step, and then the man whirled around to incredulously stare through the glass door of the mall.

The girl following her parents in their exit from the mall now turned around the corner of the building's passageway onto the front sidewalk, giving Xander a perfect glimpse at her profile just before she went out of sight. An instant later, the one-eyed man with a look of disbelief on his face burst through the doorway, shoving it open so hard that only the automatic braking mechanism on that panel kept it from slamming against the far wall and possibly shattering.

"WAIT! WAIT! HOLD UP!" bellowed Xander, rushing down the passageway, to skid to a stop on the front sidewalk, looking around frantically.

There wasn't anyone on the sidewalk or anywhere else.

"What the…." choked Xander, staring in total bogglement at the bare concrete walkway across the entire front of the building, with not a single pedestrian in sight. Xander then looked at the parking lot beyond the lane running by the sidewalk. Again, nobody was present in the lot filled with cars.

The brunette man scratched his head in honest puzzlement. Even if the three people he'd been chasing had all broken into a flat-out run right after hearing him shouting at them, there was no possible way they could have gotten out of sight so quickly. So, where the hell were they?

"Are you sure he can't find us?" whispered Steven Mills, standing stock still with his back flattened against the mall building front, as he uneasily watched the stranger with an eyepatch just a dozen feet away from them now turning around on the sidewalk in vigilant circles, clearly searching for the Mills family.

Celeste Mills, keeping her hand in her glowing purse that was beaming out their camouflage force field, said calmly in a normal tone, "Yes, as long as we don't move. However, if he starts running his hand along the wall towards us, be prepared to act as a common water bird with webbed feet, short legs, and a broad, flat beak."

"I think you mean 'duck', Mom," absently said Jessie Mills. Worried over their predicament, the young girl missed how her dad and her new stepmom smiled at each other in delight at another example of his daughter's acceptance of Celeste joining their family. Instead, in an anxious voice, Jesse said, "I thought all that stuff was over with, about the institute and your contact with the aliens, Dad. Do you know this guy?"

Steven shook his head, adding, "Never saw him before. He's certainly memorable--"

The astronomer broke off, as they all stared at the man now slapping the palm of his hand against his forehead, as this person broke out in a wide grin, while whooping, "OF COURSE! What else could you expect on today?"

Not realizing he had a bewildered audience, Xander now happily stood with his arms akimbo and his fists resting on his hips, as he beamed around, calling out, "Goooood one, Wils! Though, you might have stretched it out. Maybe had me yelled at by a bunch of fake cops for pestering those people. Nah….a really good prank would've had me arrested by a pair of phony policewoman, who after taking me into a private room, they would've given me a strip-search!"

Celeste leaned over to her husband, and whispered, "What's a strip-search?"

Steven gulped, and then whispered back, "Tell-- No, I'll show you later."

The scientist then worriedly glanced at a fascinated Jessie staring at the man now eagerly looking around and speaking into thin air, "Wils? Wils?"

Finally, after a few more moments of this, the hidden family watched the man give a rueful shrug and walk away to go back into the mall passageway. As Celeste started to take her hand out of her purse, about to turn off the alien concealment device, Steven quickly said, "Honey, no! Leave it on!"

"What?" A frowning Celeste kept her hand in her purse, as she glanced over at her husband, who was himself intently watching the mall entrance where the man had disappeared.

Sure enough, about a couple of seconds later, the one-eyed man's head popped out again from the passageway, to glance around in a final attempt to catch the redheaded prankster who'd played such a good joke on him. However, with a last look back, the man resignedly seemed to accept his defeat, and disappeared again from the family's sight.

Giving a relieved sigh, Steven looked at his wife, and suggested, "I think we'd better stay here a few minutes, just to be sure."

Nodding in acceptance, Celeste then frowned. "Is there some particular reason why that man expected something to happen to him today?"

Jessie grinned, and as her stepmom's attention switched to her, the girl chortled, "Yeah, 'cause it's---"

"Monday! No other specific reason!" hastily interjected Steven, aiming the most ferocious paterfamilias glare he could achieve right at Jessie that plainly managed to convey the silent message of, "SHUT UP, NOW!"

Jessie blinked, and then she developed a serious pout at her daddy that would ordinarily reduced her father to goo. However, even though Steven dearly loved his new wife, the fact that she was an alien from outer space who'd decided to join the human race and was eager to learn all about homo sapiens and their strange customs sometimes made explaining things more trouble than they were worth.

Considering that several weeks ago the result of Celeste learning about President's Day was her insisting on that specific holiday the family should consume their breakfast while all of them wore George Washington wigs and at the end of the meal, it was necessary for everyone to join in reciting the Gettysburg Address, Steven didn't even want to think of what would happen if his wife ever learned about April Fool's Day.

His attention was brought back to Jessie clearing her throat and glowering at him. Her grumpy face suddenly changed into a slow grin that sent unexpected chills down Steven's spine at his daughter's look of absolute doom and pure evil.

Jessie Mills now sweetly said, "Okay, Daddy, my lips are sealed about you-know-what. Instead, why don't I explain to Mom exactly what consists of a strip-search?"

* * *

The next day, Willow had to wonder why Xander was hanging around her and giving her such a wicked grin that if she'd been a guy, the first reaction to this would have been a prompt check to see if the barn door was open. Since she had a busy day lined up, the witch just shrugged, made a mental note to ask him later what was going on if he didn't talk first, and went about her business. She soon forgot all about it, since Xander never said anything.

The man, on the other hand, was in two minds about Willow's silence over the whole thing. Either it was part of the prank, which was something to be admired, or she truly didn't know anything. In that case, the encounter at the mall was just something fairly weird that had happened to Xander Harris. *Alert the media,* snarked the man in the privacy of his thoughts. No big deal, really.

Still….Xander had to admit to himself, it had been both strange AND nice to see Willow Rosenberg's exact double, looking just like his bestest bud in her first year of high school, when it was just him and her and Jesse, no Buffy, no Giles, no knowledge about the dark side of Sunnydale and the Hellmouth….. When they had all been innocent.


	2. Second Year

Xander Harris sat peacefully in the New York restaurant, finishing off his lunch and glancing through today's newspaper. At the moment, he was reading an article in the sports section of the New York Post that sneeringly proclaimed, in absolute fairness and without the slightest hint of partisanship, that in the coming baseball season, the Boston Red Sox had no chance of ever repeating their World Series win.

The man sipped his coffee, and with a faint smile on his face, Xander recalled Faith's thrown party at the Cleveland Slayers House the night of the last ball game of that specific competition that had been ecstatically started by the Boston native two seconds after the final out. Well, as much as he could recall. The latter parts of that celebration was a kind of a blur to him.

It had been one hell of a party.

It was a wonderful-memories-for-life party.

It was a party where the cops had been called in during the first hour, only to stay and join in the festivities.

It was a party where assorted virginities hadn't just been lost, they had twenty feet of anchor chain wrapped around them and tossed overboard, accompanied by happy whoops, poppings of condom balloons, and running up the house flagpole a chain of bras, jockstraps, and one set of bright red woolen long underwear.

It was a party that had ended in a glorious finale of an immense conga line that had stretched throughout the entire house and outside around the grounds, composed of every and any possible individual from different kinds of dimensions and realities, all joyously dancing together. In one short segment alone that Xander had witnessed, admittedly through a cheerful alcoholic haze, the getting-down celebrants included Slayers, Watchers, an animated cigar store wooden Indian, a Catholic cardinal in full regalia including the red cap, two Elvis Presleys (Hawaii and Army), a happy crocodile showing in its belly a large lump that had emitted loud ticking sounds, some guy who managed to keep to the beat while waving in his other hand a large placard that had written on it PREPARE TO MEET THY DOOM, and Jimmy Hoffa.

It was a party that could only be summed up by one specific word in the entire history of Western civilization:

Bitchin'.

Even the humongous hangovers inflicting all those present the next day had been mostly bearable, as the survivors had uttered in awed satisfaction the phrase, "I did THAT?! Oh, my God!", while giving each other cheerfully pained grins as they passed around the aspirin and the Bloody Marys.

As Xander smiled into his coffee mug and took another sip, he abruptly choked, spitting his mouthful back in the cup, as he unexpectedly overheard what the pair at the next table were discussing. It wasn't their fault, since they were earnestly speaking in low tones to each other and these people had full expectations of privacy among the clatter and other diners' conversations in the restaurant. Unfortunately, they were seated next to Xander Harris, Sunnydale survivor.

That title was accompanied with various events of all of his life in that Hellmouth-occupied town having a good number of effects on him, both mentally and physically. After the place had fallen into the biggest sinkhole ever, Xander had to deal with not only the occasional waking up in the middle of the night covered in icy sweat while screaming at the top of his lungs, but with him gradually learning his senses had improved somewhat compared to normal humans. It wasn't anything like the heightened senses of Slayers, vampires, and other demons, but for example, the one-eyed man could now hear a great deal better than ninety-plus percent of humanity.

It wasn't due to his body currently trying to compensate for the loss of his eye. Thinking back, Xander had realized that ever since he'd become involved with the Scoobies and all that had transpired -- Hyena, the swim team, and a gazillion other weird events, most of which involved him being hit with magic, he'd started to develop his senses. It had happened so slowly that he really hadn't noticed any big changes, but it certainly had helped him stay alive in the insanity that was his whole life since his sophomore year of high school.

Privately mulling all this over at that time, Xander had decided not to mention his slightly better hearing and the rest to anyone, even the Scoobies, Faith, or the new Slayers and Watchers. It really wasn't anyone's business but his own. Plus, why give up the advantage of being able to hear anybody in the Cleveland House (i.e., sugar-craving baby Slayers) trying to sneak into his room to get their thieving hands on his private Twinkie stash?

Of course, advantages also came with disadvantages. Better hearing also meant that he occasionally had to suffer through things like enduring an airplane trip with a continuously-crying baby in the next row over, or like at this exact moment, he couldn't do anything so impolite as stuffing his fingers in his ears to block out the man and the woman at the other table earnestly discussing their sex life. To be exact, the lack of it.

His ears burning with embarrassment, Xander glanced out of the corner of his right eye. His strategic position sitting in the restaurant's rear right corner, that kept his back to the wall and also had the wall on his left side covering his blind side, meant that concerning the pair at the other table now starting to speak all too graphically, he could only see the dark-haired guy's face, with the brunette woman sitting with her back to Xander. Both seemed to be native New Yorkers, from their accents, as they now started talking about going to see some kind of sex therapist.

Still forced to listen, Xander hastily finished off his tuna melt sandwich, gulped a last mouthful of coffee, and hurriedly got out of his chair while pulling his wallet free and taking out enough cash to pay for his meal plus a good tip. As he placed the money on the table, Xander felt a wave of depression come over him, as he contemplated the fact that while the man and the woman making him flee were evidently having problems in their relationship, at least they had one. Unlike a certain ex-Scooby.

* * *

A while back, Willow had come to see him at the Cleveland Slayers House, presenting to Xander a serious Resolve Face that meant she was in a mood. Her first words clearly revealed why she was here.

"It's Friday night! Why aren't you out on a date?!"

"Good to see you too, Wils. How's Kennedy and her accompanying total-bitch personality when it comes to me?"

"She's fine, and we're working on that. Now she actually manages not to spit when she says your name."

"Hmmm, I'll have to test her tolerance levels the next time I see her. I think I can find a codpiece somewhere…."

"Stop trying to joke your way out of this, Xander! Why haven't you started seeing someone, anyone? I'm really beginning to get worried…."

"Wils, I've been busy, ever since I got back from Africa. Taking over the House, making sure none of the baby Slayers kill each other for taking too long in the bathrooms, planning for apocalypse season…."

"Those are excuses, Xander, not reasons."

"Fine. You want a reason? How about the fact that something bad has happened to every woman in my life since high school?"

Willow Rosenberg opened her mouth to retort, only to close it again as she remembered. Joyce, Buffy, Cordelia, herself, Dawn, Faith, Harmony, Jenny, Kendra, Tara, the Potentials, even the demon girlfriends. And, of course….Anya.

"Oh, Xander." The redhead's shoulder's slumped, as she whispered those words, and she looked down at the ground as tears formed at the corners of her eyes. An instant later, she was in a firm hug.

Willow snuffled into the chest of her Xander-shaped friend until her voice became more intelligible, "I just don't want you to be so sad…."

Xander blinked down at the woman he was hugging and there was actual surprise in his reply, "I didn't know I was. Or that I was showing it."

Willow's head came up in his embrace to look with fond exasperation into the man's face. "Yellow crayon and everything after that, remember? Yes, you are, and you don't even know you're sad."

"Um." At a total loss for words, Xander did the only thing he could think of, which was hugging Willow harder until she squeaked, and then he let go and took a step back, taking comfort in her crooked smile directed at him.

The witch then sighed. "Look, will you at least try a little bit harder? If only to stop making ME so sad?"

"Blackmail, Wils?" asked Xander, with a raised eyebrow.

"I'll use anything that works. Xander, it's not your fault! It's never been, if only you could see that! It's just….the life we live, what we chose."

Xander grimaced, about to object that bringing some unknowing woman into their dangerous lifestyle was a choice itself, until he caught her eye and subsided, as his friend gently said, "Yes, there's the potential for tragedies, Xan. But the alternative is to never risk, to drive away anybody who wants to share it all… and I mean every bit of love, the joys and the sorrows both." At that, both Sunnydale survivors looked at each other, lost in their memories of life on the Hellmouth.

Finally, Xander blew out a resigned puff of air, and then sardonically said, "I wonder what would've happened if you'd broken a purple crayon. Or maybe the umber one. What the hell was umber, anyway?"

"Dark reddish-brown," absently answered Willow. She looked in increasing hope at Xander, who shrugged and rolled up his remaining eye to the heavens, as he agreed.

"Okay, okay. I'll start….looking. But, have you even considered the fact that I haven't been on a date since….Sunnydale? I warn you, if I wake up next month in Las Vegas with a wedding ring, an obscene tattoo, and a circus contortionist in bed with me, I know exactly who I'm going to blame!"

* * *

As Xander tucked his wallet back in his pants pocket after dropping his payment on the restaurant table, he sighed. Despite carrying out his promise to Willow to try to find someone, the man's dating attempts over the next few months hadn't really worked out. Little things like having to leave your date in the middle of dinner to chase after a vampire taking its latest prey along with it when that monster left the restaurant put a certain frost on the whole getting-to-know-you part of the romantic appointment. It hadn't improved things at all that the vampire and its potential meal had both been hot women. Xander now understood why it took so long for Clark Kent and Peter Parker to get a girlfriend.

Things only got worse when others offered their help. When the Cleveland baby Slayers learned of Xander's attempts to meet new people, all of them had been charmed and they unanimously decided to find someone for him. Now, Xander reflected, it had been acceptable back in Sunnydale to miss little things like Ms. French wanting to bite his head off after mating. He'd been a teenager on the Hellmouth, after all.

The baby Slayers had no such excuse. Xander shook his head over the fact that a bunch of warrior girls with mystic senses developed specifically to recognize the presence of evil had completely failed to detect that their last three choices for his blind dates had been a were-leopard, the last priestess of a minor demonic cult, and a Democrat. He'd been glad to leave town for a few days to come to New York on Council business, despite the fact that when he'd headed for the airport, one of the baby Slayers had casually dropped the question, "Hey, Xander, how do you feel about Paris Hilton?"

Maybe it was time to give serious thought to changing his name to Fitzgibbons and moving to Alaska.

As Xander turned away from his table, a faint smile appeared on his face, showing his quick change of mood. His amusement was boosted by the realization of the slight absurdity that a man who had stared down Angelus, had snarked at various Hellgods, major demons, and Principal Snyder, and had survived telling a certain blonde Slayer not at her best in the morning that he'd drunk the last cup of coffee in the house, had been run off by a couple talking about sexual positions.

True, Anya had casually chattered about things that would have curled Dr. Ruth's hair, but….well….that had been Anya.

Passing by the table where the pair had fallen silent, Xander indulged in his curiosity and on his way, he glanced at the woman, whose face was now visible.

Renee and Ellis paused in their conversation, staring at each other as each tried to deal with their feelings about their relationship problems. Neither of them paid the slightest attention to the man walking by their table, until both heard an incredulous "GACK!"

The couple's heads jerked around to look at the unknown man with an eyepatch now standing by their table and staring at them, total astonishment on his face. No….he wasn't staring at them. He was staring at Renee.

Wondering if this guy was one of New York's crazies, Renee nervously glanced at Ellis.

Xander saw her reaction, and knew immediately that whoever the woman with Faith Lehane's face was, there was no possible way she was the dark Slayer. The California native had known the Boston-born female for years now, including the time they'd spent living with the baby Slayers in the Cleveland Slayers House, both of them as Heads of the House. He'd seen her bad and her good, her joys and her sorrows, her triumphs and her despairs. He'd seen her shuffling around the House kitchen at five a.m. with disheveled hair and wearing a wifebeater t-shirt, men's boxer shorts she'd swiped from him after his shopping trip to Sears, and bright yellow duckie slippers.

In all that time, Xander Harris had never seen Faith Lehane nervous. Defiant, yes, especially when during that kitchen occasion, he'd caught her drinking OJ straight from the container.

A prompt suspicion entered Xander's mind, aided by his instantaneous recall of the date on today's newspaper he'd just read. The man whirled around, glowering at everyone else in the restaurant, as he crossly waited for them to yell, "APRIL FOOL!" and have the other Scoobies, baby Slayers, Watchers and other people and friends from his life come pouring out of the service doors and through the front door, all whooping with glee at pulling such a prank on him. Including Faith herself, with the most extreme evil smirk on her face, at her success in finding someone who could've been her identical twin sister.

The woman herself seated behind the tense man standing ready for action and possibly about to go berserk now cleared her throat and asked, an edge of panic in her voice, "Ellis, do you know this guy?"

Her boyfriend worriedly shook his head, and cautiously called out, "Uh, mister, is there something we can do for you?" in the exact tone that means hopefully, it'll be just something minor, like telling him the time and not have to listen about how the aliens are going to control everyone's minds unless you all follow me to the hills and wear one of my homemade tinfoil beanies.

Xander gradually relaxed, as nobody else in the restaurant did anything except to stare at him in puzzlement over their pasta. Slowly turning around to see the seated pair warily regarding him, Xander began to consider the remote possibility that this wasn't actually some kind of joke, but just another weird event in his life. As he glanced again at the concerned woman, the man with one eye now realized this had indeed happened, and sheepishly muttered, "Uh, sorry. You look like someone I knew….know."

Ellis and Renee blinked at this, and then looked at each other with mild relief on their faces. Politely, Renee asked, "So, it's another woman? What's her name?"

"Faith. Faith Lehane. Say, you couldn't possibly be related?…" Xander's voice trailed off after his question.

Renee shook her head, adding, "I'm an only child, there's no other woman my age among my relations, and I'm from Greek and Albanian ancestry. That name sounds Irish, doesn't it?"

The now more at ease man standing by their table nodded, "Yeah, that's what she told me once. Well, uh, sorry for disturbing you. Bye." At that, he began moving off, accompanied by Ellis and Renee's relieved farewells. Unfortunately, this relief was cut short, as the man abruptly stopped, and turned around to head back to their table, a look of determination now appearing on his scarred features.

Looking down at their apprehensive faces at seeing him back again, Xander had to wonder why he was doing this, interfering in strangers' lives. *Because it's the right thing to do*, he thought, taking a breath, and then speaking directly at both of the people there trying to deal with their relationship problems.

"Listen, uh, I lost someone special to me years ago, and I'm still not over it. Whatever happens with you both….just try your total best to make it work, okay? That does help you live with it, kind of, whatever happens. Um. Good luck. Sorry for butting in. I'll, uh, be going now." Xander then left, heading out of the restaurant, not looking back. If he had, he would have seen the two people seated at their table now staring at each other and both beginning to deeply blush, as they realized someone had overheard them struggling with their private lives.

Out in the New York sidewalk in front of the restaurant, Xander began walking down the street. To his mild surprise, he was feeling a little bit better about his own life. He began to wonder if he should mention this, along with the whole strange encounter in the restaurant, to Willow the next time he saw her. It might not be a good idea to tell Faith about it, if only to avoid having to answer her questions about exactly what those guys had been talking about in their efforts to spice up their sex lives.

Xander chuckled, as he continued down the sidewalk, and then he shook his head, lost in his thoughts. *Nah, for one thing, the whole first of this month thing will probably come up, and they'll both think it's some kind of April Fool's gag I'm trying to pull on them. Just keep quiet about it all, dude.*

As he headed back to his hotel, Xander also considered a more pressing problem concerning the Cleveland baby Slayers. *They couldn't have been serious about Paris Hilton, could they? Well, when you go back, you better stock up on stakes and holy water. That chihuahua of hers looks really vicious. Got to be some kind of demon.*


	3. Third Year

Romance was in the air.

An early spring had brought trees into leaf, flowers in bloom, and glorious cloudscapes in the bright blue sky, all dazzlingly presented in the small neighborhood park right after the month that was often quoted as 'in like a lamb, out like a lion.' Today, the lion could only be described as purring like a kitten on the first day of April.

Michael walked along the asphalt path in the middle of a grassy area glowing in bright greenery. Casually looking ahead with his distinguished features, the man's heart leapt at seeing a familiar figure in her coat walking towards him on another path that intersected with his route at a small circular space a dozen yards ahead. There, a small refreshments handcart stood, with its proprietor busy with a customer, handing over a coffee in its paper cup to the man and receiving payment, while the man standing with his back to Michael put sugar in his steaming drink and stirred it, waiting for it to cool off.

His eyes fixed on his true love, Michael didn't pay all that much attention to the other people there. She gave him a smile that shone brightly in the lessening distance between himself and his life's happiness, as his spirits soared. When at last they came together, neither spoke. Instead, they gave each other a joyous look, and stepped towards the handcart and its beaming proprietor.

This man, an older guy with true character features, quickly provided his favorite customers their accustomed beverage, a pair of Taster's Choice® coffees, setting these two cups next to each other on a shelf of the handcart. There, the steam of the hot drinks intermingled, as both people delighting in each other's company simultaneously reached for their beverages, their fingers about to touch---

"YAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!"

An ear-splitting scream of absolute agony rang through the air.

Instants before, Xander Harris had been patiently holding his near-boiling cup of coffee, as he stepped away from the handcart to give room to the other customers. Idly glancing over, the former Sunnydale resident had become totally flabbergasted at seeing a few years younger Rupert Giles wearing (horrors!) jeans and a flannel shirt, in the presence of a real living, breathing, human female that was actually a true hot babe, and all while giving her a cow-like gaze of worshipful adoration that would've caused upchucking by a brass statue.

Xander's numb fingers let slip his coffee cup loose from their grip, and the container dropped towards the ground, tilting over on the way to spill its scorching contents onto a specific part of the one-eyed man's anatomy.

Moments later, Michael and his lady love were hurriedly walking away from the handcart, leaving behind their drinks, with both nervously glancing over their shoulders at the moaning man hopping around in total anguish, his hands desperately cupping his coffee-stained crotch.


	4. Fourth Year

Xander Harris glanced at the car digital clock and noticed he'd made better time than planned. He now had at least an hour before the appointment with a new Slayer and her parents. *Get something to eat, first.*

Driving along the Pennsylvania highway, Xander looked for a fast-food place. While he no longer totally lived on junk food as he had done in Sunnydale, an occasional visit to America's culinary temples wasn't going to turn him into a blimp. *Let's see, now…..AAAAHHH!!! Not there!*

Shuddering in his driver's seat, Xander made a certain gesture at a familiar sign with golden arches that didn't really deserve to be bestowed with a pre-Atlantean gesticulation protecting oneself from absolute evil. If he'd had someone sharing the ride familiar with his past life, such as any of the Scoobies, every one of them would have groaned in exasperation at his pointing fingers and suggested that he just get over it.

Xander didn't care. He was perfectly okay with being in the same category as vegetarians, observant Jews and Hindus, and the Amish, as being one of the few American males past the age of teething who'd never eaten at McDonalds. Any corporation who had as their mascot an actual clown was in need of serious investigation by the Council, despite that a few months back, Giles had threatened to tie Xander to a chair and force him to watch the entire run of Coronation Street if the young man keep bringing up his suggestion at the demon-fighting organization's bi-annual conferences in London.

The man with an eyepatch stuck out his tongue at the small restaurant with a children's playground in front, and continued looking for somewhere else to eat. A few moments later, Xander pulled off the highway and parked in the lot of Ronald McDonald's competition. The former Sunnydale resident wasn't bothered the slightest by representations of royalty.

Five minutes later, Xander sat down at his table in the fast-food building and smacked his lips at the totally unhealthy, vein-clogging, heart-destroying, absolutely scrumptious meal that would have fed the entire population of a small African village for a week. The man bowed his head for a moment in thanks for his good fortune at being in the pinnacle of American civilization, and then started unwrapping his Whopper.

A plastic ball came bouncing along the floor on the man's right side, causing Xander to quickly reach down to pick up the toy. As he held the ball, a child's voice came from behind him, "Hey, mister, thanks."

Twisting around in his seat, Xander saw a cute young girl, about pre-school age, looking at him. Her eyes widened at seeing his eyepatch, but she only asked, "Can I have that back?" while pointing at the toy in his hand.

"Sure, here you go," smiled Xander, passing it over. He watched as she smiled back and then whirled around to skip back to her seat, singing along the way, "I only eat at Burger King…"

Xander chuckled at this, plus how the little girl had managed not to ask if he was a pirate. Even though he got that at least a couple of times a week from strangers, more often every time a new film with Johnny Depp came out, the head of the Cleveland Slayers House wouldn't have minded answering questions about this with that charming youngster. He would've even thrown in a pretty good "Yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum!" if he said so, himself.

Anyway, it was time to eat. Xander brought up his hamburger to his mouth, and as the realization burst in his mind, he chomped down on it so hard in sheer shock that honey mustard sauce went flying in all directions.

A sauce-covered Xander sat there unmoving for a few moments, and then he carefully put down his hamburger with a single bite missing from it, picked up napkins from his tray, and methodically began cleaning his face, including the front of his eyepatch, all while thoughtfully chewing. Only when he was finished, both in cleaning and chewing, did Xander swallow his food past the lump in his throat, as the man slowly turned in his seat to disbelievingly stare at the little girl with her parents at their booth.

A few seconds later, Xander had dumped his barely touched food in the trashcan, dropped the tray on top of this with a clatter, and half walked, half ran out of the Burger King restaurant, muttering under his breath, "How come NOW this place has also gone over to the dark side?"

Xander skidded to a stop right outside the door, seeing that in order to get back to his car, he'd have to walk past the part of the restaurant where the little girl was sitting and looking out of the window. The man casually sidled down the pathway, determinedly staring ahead. Unfortunately, he caught out of the corner of his eye the person-she-couldn't-possibly-be giving him a wave. Xander's arm came up despite himself in a jerkily returned wave, and then he abandoned all dignity to make an outright run for it.

Several minutes later, Xander's car came to a screeching stop on a residential street that was thankfully occupied by homes and not any kind of food-service industrial structures. Now parked on the side of the street, Xander just stared ahead blankly, and then his head fell forward for his forehead to rest on the rim of the steering wheel. An actual whimper came from his lips.

After a while, still in his position, Xander's right hand fumbled in his pocket for his cellphone, and then he straightened up in his car seat, as he looked thoughtful, working out in his head the time zones. Nodding in satisfaction as he realized that Buffy would now have consumed her required morning caffeine fix in the Scottish castle of the Council Main Headquarters where she currently lived, Xander pressed a button on his phone for her personal number. Unconsciously, with the idea of coffee lurking at the edges of his brain, as he waited for her to pick up the phone, the man's other hand reached down to pull away the crotch of his pants.

First-degree burns in that particular place will overcome etiquette any time.

Eventually, Xander's call was answered.

"Yo, Buffster, Big X here."

"……………."

"Giles hasn't ever stopped me from calling him G-man. There's no hope for you, either."

"……………!"

"Oooo, good one. Anyway, what I'm calling for is about something that happened way back when in Sunnydale. Just a few weeks after you moved in."

"……………?"

"Yeah, our first dinner there, me and Wils, with you and your mom."

"……………."

"Yeah, yeah, we've had that discussion about Dawn. Anyway, I want to talk about right after the dinner, when your mom got out the family photos."

"……………!!!!"

"I still think you were secretly relieved about your house going down with the sinkhole, since it took with it that photo of you when you were a year old taking a bath in the kitchen sink, topless except for a few bubbles, and your hair smushed into a mohawk."

"____________"

"I've heard all the threats, you know that. Even back then, it was worth me nearly choking on my dessert and Willow giggling so hard I thought she was going to wet herself."

"*******%^!!!"

"Yeah, if Joyce didn't know then you were the Slayer, you woulda stuffed us both into the empty Pepperridge Farms cookie package. I got that, I got that."

"……………."

"Nuh-huh. Any parental embarrassing photo of you trumps any humiliating photo of anyone else. Even the Christmas card you sent out last year that was taken the time you visited Cleveland during my little mishap with the tranquilizer gun."

"……………:)"

"Sisterly solidarity, my ass! Sooner or later, I'm gonna find out when you and the others waited for me to wake up exactly which Slayer came up with the idea of giving me a full Britney Spears makeover!"

"……………:P"

"Do you know how hard it was to get that much mascara off?! Somebody went overboard with the raccoon eyes!"

"……………0:)"

"You didn't…. Okay. My revenge will be terrible. Um. Look, the whole reason I called was about another photo. It was you for your pre-school class, a headshot of you maybe five years old, with white ribbons in your hair. Now, could you possibly remember what you were dressed like then? Was it a purple overall, with a white, long-sleeved blouse? Hello? Hello?"

Xander pulled away his now-silent phone from his ear, grimacing in disappointment. "Damn. I thought she didn't pay any attention to holidays that didn't involve gifts or time off from school. I wonder if someone tried to pull an April Fool's gag on her today….. Waaaaaaait a second."

The man's sole eye narrowed in suspicion, as he now remembered all that had happened for the last several years on the anniversary of this very day.

*Hah,* mused his unseen watcher. *I don't know whether to feel proud he finally spotted it, or disappointed it took him so long. Let's see if he actually remembers when next year comes around.*


	5. Fifth Year

The young woman worriedly glanced at the one-eyed man in the passenger seat, as he blankly stared out of the windows of the speeding car. Christine de Villaine then brought her attention again at the German autobahn where she was driving their vehicle, and tried to think if she had offended a legend.

Just a few years ago, she'd been living contentedly with her family in France, until in her dreams, she had heard the words, "Are you ready to be strong?" Among Slayers meeting their sisters for the first time, it was usual for them to discuss their reactions and compare what happened next. Christine now knew she'd been more fortunate than a good many girls, with her family reacting with puzzlement and alarm at her newfound strength and the girl slipping out at night to search for monsters, but they'd loved her and tried to help her in any way possible. Thankfully, she'd been found by the New Council soon after, and explanations had been provided, along with training in her mystical abilities.

A lot of other young women hadn't been as lucky.

In any event, Christine had passed through the Slayer courses with extremely high scores, and it was soon time for her to decide her next purpose in life. Both the need to deal with thousands of Slayers worldwide, plus the new version of the Council having an extremely strong distaste of ever behaving like the previous organization, caused great changes in how Slayers would be deployed in their fight against the forces of evil.

The main change was that for once and all, Slayers would go where they wanted and do what they were best at, rather than being forced by the Council into tasks totally unfit for their personalities. Slayers Houses were set up worldwide, holding groups of young woman that learned they never again had to fight alone, but at the side of their sisters. Every Slayer also was urged to live their lives to the fullest, becoming educated, finding someone to share their time on earth….all what virtually no Slayer had been allowed to accomplish before the passing of the Slayer-spirit to "Buffee Sommers."

* * *

Several months earlier, Rupert Giles drowsily blinked at the remains of the immense meal that was spread across his office desk, the cold light of a clear winter's day shining through the office windows brightly illuminating the empty plates and scattered crumbs. Guiltily conscious that he'd eaten far too much, the man discreetly reached down to adjust the waistband of his tweed trousers. Still, it had been worth it all, as the head of the International Watchers' Council faintly smiled at the two sisters seated in front of his desk, both idly arguing who would get the last dessert petit four of their lunch together.

Buffy Summers won, of course, another of the series of victories in the life of the oldest-living Slayer in the world, quickly grabbing the small cake off the plate on the desk before Dawn could react and popping the pastry into her mouth, all while smirking at her sister. Dawn huffily said, "That's gonna go right to your hips, you know that?"

Giles let his smile widen at this. Dawn's snarked suggestion was naturally quite impossible, as the Slayer metabolism common to all of the warrior women would quickly turn the consumed food into energy rather than body fat. Though, the Englishman wouldn't have objected to the last consequence all that much, despite knowing far better than to ever broach the subject to his Slayer. Giles had worried for years about Buffy's appetite. Ever since her cheerleader days in high school, the blonde woman had carefully watched her food consumption, even though becoming a Slayer meant she could have eaten a whole ox a week without ballooning up.

Rather, during her Sunnydale days, Buffy had all too often become painfully thin, even gaunt at times, as the stress of her task of defending the innocents from the dark had caused her to pick at her food, or to just ignore it. Giles firmly reminded himself, remembering past unpleasant memories of a teenager's all-too evident ribs and bony shoulder blades, that things had changed now for the better. Ever since Buffy had moved from Rome after that episode with the Immortal to reside in Britain, splitting her time from Scotland and London on Council business, she'd started eating more.

"Stocking up for the winter," Buffy had snorted wryly several weeks ago, shivering theatrically as she gestured at the late fall rain lashing at the windows of Giles' Council office in London. "It sure isn't like Italy. Or even California. Still, there are compensations. I don't have to slather sunscreen on my face every time I go out."

"There is a reason for the term 'peaches-and-cream complexion' usually used in the description of English women, Buffy" mildly said Giles, as the man's unruffled face carefully hid his happiness on how his daughter-in-heart looked a great deal better with a few more added pounds covering her form and features.

"I guess." Buffy's face went into a totally adorable pout, as the Slayer directed a suspicious glower at Giles. "Is that some sort of crack about my Council credit-card bill from the make-up department at Harrods?"

The Englishman looked blandly at Buffy, calmly answering, "It's just that you reached your limit on the card much faster there than even the most extravagant Sloane Ranger. I heard that Guinness World Records was informed of your accomplishment and refused to accept it as true, saying some things were totally unbelievable, even to them."

Giles brought himself to the present to find out that he had an actual grin on his face and he was being amusedly regarded by the two women in his office. A smiling Dawn looked over at her equally pleased sister, giggling, "I think he's having a flashback to the Raj. You just know he's gonna insist on us calling him 'sahib' and wearing a pith helmet, slapping a swagger stick against his jodhpurs and muttering about the Great Game and those blasted Pathans on the Northwest border."

As feminine shrieks of hilarity rang through Rupert Giles' office, the man himself just harrumphed and began tidying up his desk. Managing to conceal his absolute pleasure at having his daughters tease him, Giles began stacking the plates of their lunch. As much as Giles adored having Dawn and Buffy here, he did have work to do, and hopefully they would take the gentle hint that it was time to leave and let him get back to his responsibilities.

The man paused in his task, as he had to admit to himself that the terms 'gentle hint' and 'Summers sisters' bore the utter lack of reality to each other as did the linking together the phrases 'gracious manners' and 'West Ham supporter.'

The soft chime from his officer intercom broke into Giles' thoughts, as his secretary in the reception room announced, "Director Giles, your mail is here."

As Giles leaned forward to press the switch on the intercom, his mouth opening to ask the administrative worker to bring in his messages, Dawn bounced up from her chair, saying over her shoulder, as she spun and headed for the office door, "I'll get it, Giles."

"Thank you, Dawn," called the head of the IWC as the younger Summers woman opened the door and went into the reception room. A few moments later, Dawn came back into the office, holding several letters and packages in her hands. Instead of heading to Giles to give him these, Dawn went to her chair, plopping down in it to hand over the packages to Buffy next to her, as the Key used a fingernail to rip open the flap of a letter.

Giles opened his mouth to object over the seizure of his private correspondence, only to ruefully close it again, as the sisters were only acting as anyone who knew them well would have expected. Which, Giles mentally noted to himself, included his secretary, who was very good at her job. She would have sorted the mail at her own desk before informing him of its arrival, keeping for later anything that Buffy or Dawn had no business seeing.

The Englishman leaned back in his chair to benignly watch Buffy giving soft growls of pleasure as she tore open a package. Even though it was clearly not intended for her and it wasn't even gift-wrapped, a package was a package, utterly irresistible to the young woman ripping off the wrappings, eager to find out whatever was in there. One thing Buffy was sure of, it was totally safe to open it. The combination of security precautions and Willow's strongest wards on the Council building in London meant that all correspondence was scanned both materially and mystically for anything dangerous: poison, curses, explosives, hexes, etc.

Plus, even the most power-mad Evil Overlord knew better than to mess with the British Royal Mail.

"Whoa!" Giles attention was abruptly brought to where Buffy was in her chair, staring with a shocked look on her face at the photograph she was holding in her right hand, while a stack of other photographs were held in her other hand.

"What's up, Buffy?" asked Dawn, her own opened letters ignored as she craned over to look at what Buffy had. Her older sister now turned her hand to show Dawn what was on the photograph, ignoring how Giles was opening his mouth to ask what was going on. A request that was building up steam at Dawn's own shocked gasp of, "WOW!"

Buffy now leaned forward to slap down the photograph face up on Giles' desk, demanding, "Giles, who the hell is that?"

Rupert Giles blinked at Buffy's irascible tone, and then reached out to pick up the photograph and looked full at it. An extremely surprised expression appeared on his face, at seeing a young woman midway in age between Buffy and Dawn, who was dressed in a stylish outfit of a clearly expensive blouse and pants, standing outside on a sunny day and leaning against a stone wall, giving the camera a serene look.

A young woman, who Giles had to admit, was among the most beautiful females he'd ever seen in his entire life. He stared at a flawless oval face, bright eyes, a classic snub nose, and perfect lips, all framed by long brunette hair in a casual style that Giles knew must have taken hours by a stylist to create. Or, judging from where Buffy was grinding her teeth as she flipped through the rest of the photographs that clearly showed more images of the young woman, the hairstyle was natural, which was totally unfair to those who struggled with their own dyed-blonde locks.

A memory rose in Giles' mind, as he slowly said, "She looks familiar, Buffy, but… Is there anything else in there?" The man nodded at the photographs Buffy was holding as she finished going through them, pulling out several sheets of folded paper at the end of the documents.

Buffy opened the papers and gave them a quick glance, to absently snort, "Chicken scratchings. Nothing I can read." She handed the papers over to Dawn, who herself looked at these and had an exasperated glower appear as the younger Summers sister rolled her eyes.

Dawn grumped, as she got out of her chair, "It's French, Buffy!" Heading around the desk to stand by Giles, Dawn laid the papers face up on the desk and remained next to the man, her hand lightly resting on his shoulder as she bent down to read the papers, as did Giles.

The Englishman nodded in recognization at the first mention of a name he now remembered. "Christine de Villaine…. Yes, yes, a French Slayer, one of the roaming ones."

"A Slayer? How come I don't know her?" Buffy asked this as she disbelievingly glanced out of the corner of her eye at the gorgeous young woman in one of the other photographs the California native was still clutching in her hands.

"She was found by the Council and underwent training while you were in Italy, Buffy. I don't recall ever meeting her, though I certainly did see her around the castle training center in Scotland." Giles looked reminiscent at his last statement, disregarding the glare Buffy sent his way. The glare suddenly changed to an astonished expression on Buffy's face that made Giles ask with concern, "Is there something wrong?"

"Um. It's just that….well, I just realized that there are now so many Slayers that I don't know….I haven't even met them all. Huh. Not the one and only, not ever again." Buffy slowly shook her head at this existentialist realization.

Dawn dryly said, looking up from where she had continued reading the letter, "There's still the one and only Buffy Summers, the jerk who keeps swiping my iPod and messing with my song choices."

The blonde woman accused of this haughtily sniffed, "You're too young to listen to Tony Bennett! Never mind that, anyway." Buffy then directed a killer glare at Giles, and said in a tone of absolute menace, "Why is she sending YOU her picture?"

Calmly looking back at the angry woman, Giles said, with a perfect deadpan, "She opened her angel's arms to the stranger in paradise, to tell me that I may be a stranger no more."

An open-mouthed Buffy just stared at the man with a poker face, his lips barely twitching at the corners, as Dawn screamed with laughter. Finally bringing herself under control, Dawn gasped, "No, Buffy, it's all in the letter." She gestured at this document on Giles' desk, as the man himself leaned back in his chair and nodded, his eyes twinkling at the befuddled woman seated in the chair across from him.

Dawn thoughtfully said, as she began her explanation, "Actually, Buffy, I think you'll like this. See, she and her Watcher -- who wrote the letter and sent in the pictures -- had to check out that place in the photos for signs of demons. But, they needed an excuse to get in there, something everybody would buy. So, the Slayer, Christine, came up with a plan, dressed up in her best clothes, her Watcher got hold of a camera, and they just waltzed into there, telling anyone who asked that she was a model and the guy with her was her photographer who insisted on atmospheric shots, and could they please get out of his light?"

As Buffy absorbed this, both of the others in the office were relieved at the slow grin appearing on the Slayer's face. Finally, Buffy chuckled and said, "Not bad. I bet she batted her eyes at everyone there and they basically fell over themselves to do her favors. And if she did anything Slayer-like weird, they must have all thought 'hey, she's a model -- they're not like other people.' Kinda like my own California ditz/cheerleader character in Sunnydale, making 'em all back then think I'm dumb and can be safely ignored, at least until they poofed like a good little vamp."

Dawn asked curiously, "Can you still do it?"

Buffy cocked her head to the side and mused, "Well, it's been a while -- the European vamps didn't really understand the whole thing -- but, here goes." At this, Buffy sat up straight in her chair, took the deepest breath she could manage while sticking out her chest, plastered a wide-eyed look of vacuity on her features, and chirped in a perky voice, "Hey, Mr. Growly Face, have you seen a dozen other really sexy girls in short skirts and halter tops? Me and my cheerleader friends need somebody to check out our totally bitchin' special routine, the one we created to thank our sponsors, telling them to bring all their cameras. Maybe you can give us some tips, telling us what men really like. Oh, this pointy stick? Well, I was just practicing with my pom-pom, and the head flew off. I think it fell down there. Could you get it for me? Please, please, please? Yay! Go, team! Damn, I knew I should have stayed upwind, kept the ashes out of my hair."

As Buffy finished, she smirked at the pair behind the desk roaring with laughter. As they began to quiet down, the Slayer looked down at the photographs she was still holding, and said thoughtfully, "If she thought of that, she's gonna go far. Do you remember how she did in the Slayers training, Giles?'

"Top marks, as I recall," said Giles, wiping away a tear of mirth. "Her teachers were most impressed."

"Hmmm…. Someone who could come up with a zany plan like that, plus she's the first girl I've ever known who could make Cordy look like she was hit by the ugly stick…." Buffy leaned again toward Giles' desk, to deposit the photographs she'd been holding onto this office furniture.

As the blonde settled back in her seat, on the way, she grabbed the first picture on the stack and kept it, pensively adding, "Giles, these are for the Council records, right? To pass on to others to use the same idea of a fake model and her photographer?" At Giles' nod, Buffy looked intently at the face of the beautiful young woman in the picture, and muttered, "I'm gonna keep an eye on that one….."

* * *

Several months later, still in a daze after her abrupt journey, Christine de Villaine stood in front of her bedroom mirror inside the Scottish castle of the International Watchers' Council, and checked her appearance. She was well aware of her beauty, though she took it for granted, along with a lifetime of others' stares. Several years ago, she and her parents had been approached by an international modeling agency to have her work for them, appearing in childrens' and teenagers' apparel for print and television media. It had been somewhat fun, and certainly lucrative, with the possibility she could very well become a true supermodel when she was a bit older.

Fate had other plans for her, that wound up with the young woman becoming a Tueur. A Slayer, Christine mentally corrected herself. She sometimes wondered if life would have been all that different if she'd followed in Laetitia Casta's footsteps as a French mannequin. From the gossip the girl had overhead from the older models during her short career, there were people in the modeling business who were just as ruthless and bloodthirsty as any vampire she'd staked.

The young woman wryly smiled at her reflection. Nobody seemed to realize that whatever she was considered to be by others -- beautiful, Slayer, model -- in the end, she was just another human who in waking up in the morning had to rub gunk out of the corners of her eyes, and after every meal, she needed to check to see that no food was stuck between her teeth. At that thought, Christine opened her mouth and nervously peered at these pure white objects. Finding no problems, the woman shut her mouth and turned away from the mirror, standing in the middle of the bedroom, as she sighed.

It was all totally incredible, and most worrying. She had been summoned here, to the main European training center, to meet with Directeur Rupert Giles of the Conseil des Observateurs Internationaux, and she had no idea why.

In her mind, trying to find someone to blame for this, Christine grumbled about her Watcher, as they were called in this place. She knew Georges Matthieu deeply cared for his mother, but was it truly necessary for him to stay with her during all her recuperation from major surgery she'd undergone just a few days ago? A wave of guilt suddenly swept over Christine, as she scolded herself that she would have worried just as much over her own mother, and wanted to be with her in such trying times.

However, at this moment, Christine dearly wished to be back in her chosen occupation of a Tueuer errant.

For the New Council, one interesting consequence of the concentration of Slayers in a city or a certain area, whether a Hellmouth existed there or not, was the development of what was soon dubbed the "roaming Slayer" effect. Some Slayers simply didn't want to live in one place with other warrior women. A certain one-eyed man who suggested that the memories of twenty young girls having to share two bathrooms had carried over among the Slayers worldwide during the Activation was promptly tackled in the London Council conference room, to be carried fruitlessly struggling by a whooping Faith and Buffy into the executive washroom, where he had his mouth scrubbed out with soap.

Giles had simply sighed, and waited for them all to come back to the conference table, where the Englishman then ignored Xander furtively blowing bubbles from his lips, as the Scooby Gang continued their discussion on how to deal with this.

In any case, the classic pairing of Slayer/Watcher was soon found to be the solution for those Slayers who had a taste for the nomadic life. They were sent out with their companions to rove around their native countries, poking into the more rural areas and smaller towns, to investigate possible demonic activity, magical events, and their true enemies, the vampires who'd decided to stay away from the cities with their groups of Slayers living there.

These Watchers and Slayers, in their searches, had the comforting knowledge that if they ever came across something they couldn't deal with alone, serious backup was on hand, with other Slayers from the country Houses quickly coming to their aid, and if necessary, there would be more help, from every Slayer in the world and their allies. Guaranteed. Among the bitterest memories of the Scooby Gang was how the previous Council had never sent them any kind of effective support during their time in Sunnydale.

These recollections particularly shamed Giles, who'd frankly expected more from the organization he'd joined as a young man. Perhaps that was why the Englishman simply rolled his eyes as he came across in the proposal for creating and directing such support to the Slayers, the motto suggested by Dawn for those specific occasions when the REALLY big guns needed to be broken out. He'd signed his acceptance, though he'd sent along an acerbic note to that young woman: "I'm surprised you just didn't make up something for the last word."

The only answer from Dawn was a sample triangular cloth patch, black with gold lettering, that would be on the body armor shirts of the Heavy Weapons Squad, and bearing the slogan joyously adopted by those members of maximum mayhem: ILLIC HAUD TALIS RES UT NIMIUM CAEDES.

There is no such thing as overkill.

A knock on the door of her room distracted Christine's attention from her deep desire to be anywhere else rather than here. She walked over to the door and opened it to see another young Slayer there, an expectant look on the other woman's face, as that girl politely asked, "Are you ready to see Director Giles?"

Her stomach now full of butterflies, Christine managed to keep her face calm, as she nodded and left the room, following her guide through the corridors of the castle. Neither spoke to each other, though Christine was beginning to become more nervous over a specific detail about their journey. Throughout it all, her escort eyed Christine with one of the strangest expressions the Frenchwoman had ever seen, a look combining half envy and half sympathy.

At last, they came to Director Giles' office, with Christine waiting in the reception room as her guide left and the secretary murmured the news of her arrival into the office intercom.

The Slayers' bemusement and growing alarm abruptly ended, as Director Giles himself opened the door to his office and gestured her inside, escorting the young woman to her chair in front of his desk, while he then took his own seat. A few minutes of polite conversation then took place in Christine's native language, with the head of the IWC expressing his hopes that his visitor had a pleasant flight and that her quarters were comfortable. The man had only a slight accent in his well-educated French.

Finally, Christine determinedly got to the main purpose of the meeting, using the symbolism of switching to her superior's birth language. "Sir, why am I here, if I may ask?" She hoped that there was absolutely no trace of a quaver in her voice as she said this in English.

"Ah." Director Giles pulled off his glasses and took out a handkerchief from his front suit pocket, to slowly polish the lenses. He sent a somewhat unfocused stare at the waiting woman, cleared his throat, and continued, "You were summoned to be asked for a personal favor."

Totally dumbfounded, Christine could only gape at the man, who sighed, and went on to explain. "I presume that you've heard of Xander Harris?"

"Le Protecteur?" gasped Christine.

Director Giles' eyebrows lifted, as he observed, "That's a new one." Replacing his glasses on his nose, as Giles regarded Christine's faint blush, he went on, "If things progress, it would be a good idea not to use that title in his presence. Just refer to him as Xander."

In an amazed tone, Christine exclaimed, "I'm going to meet him?"

"More than just meet him, I hope." Encouraged by his visitor's eager expression, Giles beamed at Christine and started talking again. "As you know, we provide the members of our organization with yearly adequate vacation time, including, of course, the Heads of the Slayers Houses. However, Mr. Harris -- Xander -- finds it rather difficult to shed his responsibilities to take time off."

Here, Giles paused, remembering in the privacy of his mind the outburst from that young man, "Dammit, G-man, sitting on a beach just bores me outta my freakin' skull! There's nothing to DO! And it's totally lonely when it's just you seeing the sights."

Watched by Christine, Rupert Giles went on, speaking seriously. "In the past, we've shanghai--, er, that is, we've sent him off with direct orders to take a vacation. The problem is that when he becomes bored during his break, he has a tendency to become involved in incidents even more bizarre than the usual. There was the time he went off on his own in the Okefenokee swamp, and stumbled onto a dimensional portal…." Giles muttered a few more words under his breath that even a Slayer had a hard time discerning, though Christine heard something that sounded like, "Pogo Possum…."

Meeting Christine's puzzled frown, Giles harrumphed, "Well, in any case, during the last few years, we've come up with a more successful approach. We send him on a working vacation, giving him light duty and pairing him up with a roaming Slayer who at the moment has no Watcher and can show him the places of interest in her country that the usual tourists never visit."

At the Frenchwoman's dawning comprehension, Giles nodded. "Yes, we would like you to be this year's companion for Xander."

"Certainement!" Christine's entire face was glowing in her enthusiastic assent, as she clasped her hands together in joy.

Giles was more than a bit taken aback by his beautiful visitor's sudden agreement. He stared at her in astonishment, before gruffly mentioning, "Ah, Mademoiselle de Villaine, there is no need to answer right now. Also, this is not in any way a command or an order. I -- we -- are just asking if you would like to be Xander's escort and guide during his vacation. A bit more thoroughly than that of the young woman who brought you here, but the principle is the same."

"Monsieur Giles, I understand that," politely said Christine. A happy sparkle appeared in the young woman's eyes, as she went on, "But, I have already decided that I wish to do this. I would be most happy to show Monsieur Harris around my home."

"He'll tell you in the first two seconds of your meeting to call him Xander," absently muttered Giles. His face changed into a frown as he stared at Christine. "Not that I'm not pleased at your decision, but why did you make it so quickly? As far as I know, you've never met him."

Christine smiled at Giles, who like any other straight male on earth was warmed by her expression of pleasure. The young woman agreed, "Yes, Directeur, I have not. But I have heard the stories from others who have, at here when I was studying. I have read the stories of what you, he, and the others did at the Bouche D'enfer. I would very much like to meet him in person."

"Oh," commented Giles, ruefully sighing in his mind the next thoughts, *Dear Lord, another case of hero worship. Oh, well, he's dealt effectively enough with that in the past, even though it's usually by one of the younger Slayers.* Brightening at this, Giles smiled at Christine and leaned back in his chair to cheerfully say, "Well, that's the first step done. I'm quite happy you agreed to this, and you won't find me ungrateful in the future. Concerning your time together, you'll receive your usual pay, of course, and it won't count as vacation time-- Yes?" Giles broke off at Christine's sudden change of expression to frowning puzzlement.

"First step? Is there something else to be done?" Christine stared at Giles' suddenly sheepish features, as the man cleared his throat, buying a moment's time to figure out a way to say this.

"While, of course, I am the last point of consent, it was expressed to me in the, ah, firmest manner possible, that this should be discussed among other people as the next step. Right now, in fact. In the next room. They're waiting for you." Giles avoided Christine's incredulous gaze by firmly staring at something past her left ear.

Finally, an extremely mystified Frenchwoman gave a graceful shrug, and rose from her chair, standing by it as she sent a curious look at the man remaining in his seat. "Are you not coming also?"

Director Giles peered over his glasses, and calmly said, "Save for the young man we were just discussing, there's no other male currently in this castle -- myself included -- who would dare enter that room." At Christine's bewilderment, the Englishman unbent a little to kindly add, "Since they specifically asked for you, I think there's a good chance you'll survive the experience. Now, I believe it's time for you to go. It's never a good idea to make them impatient."

Several minutes later, an extremely nervous Christine stood in a room filled with other females, all of these which would have overpowered anyone's attention, while in the middle of a conversation that was a surreal combination of a death threat, a combat briefing, and a family squabble.

As the young woman before Christine delivered bloodcurdling warnings in flawless French, the European Slayer listened with only a fraction of her attention, as she was distracted by the two women behind Dawn Summers.

Christine was trying very hard not to faint. Just a few seconds ago she'd been introduced to Buffy Summers, and while shaking hands, the Frenchwoman had to suppress the strangest feeling she should be curtseying to that blonde woman. Next, she'd been introduced to Willow Rosenberg. La sorcière rouge. And right now, as the redhead was faintly smiling at Christine, the woman with the clearly dyed hair was poking her friend in the ribs, and hissing, "What'd she say? What'd she say?"

"She's just giving the usual keep-Xander-safe-or-else speech, Buffy. Goddess, I thought you kept a bit of your French from that Halloween!"

"It all went away, just like your ghost stuff, Willow. Or so you claimed when I caught you bumping against the back wall in the girls' locker room."

"I was ducking Harmony!"

"Yeah, right. It didn't have anything to do with that wall being the other side of the boys' showers?"

At that moment, the younger Summers sister was calmly informing Christine that if Xander Harris was to be seriously hurt due to any error made by the Frenchwoman, it was to be hoped that her affairs were in order. In the middle of this, Dawn abruptly stomped her right foot back, aiming at the gleaming toe of Buffy's right Sergio Rossi shoe. Continuing smirking at her red-faced friend, the oldest Slayer ever scooted back her own foot a fraction of an inch out of range, as her sister's heel smacked against the floor during its failure to land on its target.

What really astounded Christine was that neither of the sisters looked at each other during this byplay. Instead, Dawn continued to hold the gaze of the French Slayer, as the American ended her lecture by informing her listener that she had been quite serious about the consequences of any mistake that resulted in an injured White Knight.

"'Kay, now that the gabble-fest's over with, we can get down to serious business."

This came from the one woman who hadn't come forward to greet Christine. Unlike the others, who included Buffy and Willow, and a half-dozen Slayers, many of which the French girl recognized as being Heads of Houses worldwide, all of which had shaken her hand and then stepped back. Instead, from where a striking brunette with a sardonic smile on her face had been perched on the edge of a conference table, a trim leg in her jeans idly swinging as she watched the meeting between Christine and the others, this woman growled out her comment as she now slid off the table and swaggered over.

On the way, she made an obscene gesture to the room at large in response to everyone else there, save for Christine, chorusing in a clear imitation of Director Giles' accent, "Dear Lord…."

Now standing in front of Christine, Faith Lehane had to tilt her head up slightly to look the other Slayer in the eye. Not that this affected the slightest the Frenchwoman's innermost feelings that she should be throwing herself down on her stomach in front of the dark Slayer and baring the back of her neck to the Alpha female. Christine managed to hold this to the tiniest of body shivers, and saw a flicker of respect pass over Faith's face, as the American nodded, and said what she'd come to say.

"Ya wanna make a move on Xander, go right 'head."

A minute earlier, Faith had been steadily watching Christine, and thinking, *Damn, no wonder Red said 'hubba, hubba!' when her picture was passed 'round. Helluva good thing she wasn't the Slayer in Sunnydale when I first landed there. Got pissed off enough by B's blond cuteness then. Meetin' Frenchie when I felt like crap 'bout how I looked as a kid and alla the shit it got me, I woulda seriously thought 'bout killin' her.*

Faith now tuned out Dawn's lecture, as the woman now more confident about her appearance further mused about a recently-noticed oddity concerning Slayers: how they all appeared good-looking, ranging from seriously pretty to….well, her, that gorgeous woman now listening slightly stunned to Dawn. *Fuckin' wizards who started it all, grabbin' the first of us and sacrificin' her to a demon, they musta been dirty old men. Got no other reason for adding to the Slayer stuff the detail that none of us is ugly or some kinda dog. Bastards.*

The Boston-born Slayer now became more alert, as she sensed Dawn was about to finish. There was time for a last thought. *Hope Frenchie don't freak out too much.*

Christine stared at the woman who'd just spoken to her, unsure if she'd correctly heard and understood that sentence. A sudden glare appeared on the Frenchwoman's face, as she opened her mouth to shout at someone who evidently thought she had an utter lack of morals. This angry rejoinder was abruptly ended before it could start, by the upraised hand of the woman before her, and more importantly, the respectful look now on Faith's face.

"Ya got stones, Frenchie. Mosta the time, any baby Slayer woulda backed off. Now, just keep quiet and lemme talk."

Christine managed to lower her simmering temper, to stiffly nod in response to Faith's words, as the dark Slayer went on.

"I ain't telling' ya to hop right into bed with him…well, ya can if ya want to…nah, nah! See, it's like this: we're just tryin' to set up a guy we know at work. Nothin' more than that, honest injun."

The beautiful Slayer stared at Faith in total bewilderment. While her words were reasonably coherent, the dark Slayer's explanation made no sense. Christine finally spoke, "Please….I don't understand. What is all this?"

Faith sighed, and rubbed the back of her neck, as she ruefully looked around the room, to see the other women staring at her. Growling at them, the brunette snapped, "Yeah, I know it's my turn, but ya didn't do any better when it was yours!" Faith looked back at Christine, and confirmed, "Yeah, we been trying this for a while. Um. It's a long story, but the short version is: Xander don't have nobody, and that's really hurtin' him. And….it hurts us."

Christine stared around the room full of other striking women. She uncertainly asked, "There is no one to share his life? Nobody….here?"

A flicker of pain flashed over everyone's face there, Faith included. The brunette Slayer cleared her throat, bringing back Christine's attention to her. "That's kinda private….but, okay, I guess ya deserve to know. So long as ya keep yer damn mouth shut, ya got me? What I'm gonna tell ya is what we know, guessed, or dragged outta him. First, he ain't never gonna bring in some girl who don't already know 'bout the dark side of things into our world. No-fucking-way. That leaves a pretty small buncha ladies compared to the world at large. Yeah, it includes us right here in this room, but, uh, he's got serious issues 'bout that, too."

Faith waved her hand around the room, clearly indicating every one of the women there, save for Christine, as the former employee of a demon Mayor went on. "A couple of us, he's known 'em alla his life." Faith nodded at the women Christine knew to be Willow and Dawn. "He don't think of 'em as anything but sisters, and also when he tried anyway, things got seriously screwed up. So, he loves 'em, but not that way." Christine looked over curiously at the indicated women, to see the redhead look down at the floor, her face a mask of misery, while Dawn had a more frozen expression on her own face.

Another wave of Faith's hand, this time directed at the small group of Slayers at the back of the room, those who were Heads of Houses. "Kinda like the same thing with 'em. He knew alla those guys before they became Slayers, and he still thinks 'em to be his girls to be protected. Still loves 'em all, even those who saw his butt when he was takin' a shower in Sunnyhell, but, nope. Ain't interested that way."

The crooked grin Faith sent the Slayers in the back of the room was returned in kind, but then Faith's face hardened in a pained grimace, and she whispered, looking squarely across the room right into Buffy's anguished face, "And the last two of us….we fucked up big-time. Even after what we done to him, he loves us both enough to die for us, but he ain't ever gonna share his life with me or B."

There was quiet in the room for a few moments, with Christine feeling awkward over the remembered pain she'd unknowingly caused. Finally, Faith cleared her throat again and eyed the silent Frenchwoman. "Well, alla that shit led us to tryin' somethin' new, when we came up with Xander's workin' vacations. We get him to meet new people, and it's been okay so far, with him havin' a good time, though nothin' really happened between him and the other Slayers."

Replaying in her mind her meeting with the head of the IWC, Christine bluntly asked, "Does Directeur Giles know about this?"

"He ain't ever come right out and said so, but that guy got to be the head of the Council, and it ain't 'cause he looks good in tweed. So, prob'ly. But he don't need to get involved alla that much, leavin' it to us, so he mostly stays out. Anyways, he really, really wants Xander to be happy. Man thinks of boytoy as his son."

Christine thoughtfully considered the earnest brunette before her, and carefully spoke, "There are other Slayers who could have been chosen to escort Mr. Harris, non?"

Faith shrugged, and gave Christine a wry grin. "Hell, there's reasons we picked you. You're damn good at our work, and you're gonna get better. You really thought we'd stick Xander with a baby Slayer what ain't staked her first vamp?"

A black woman on her feet and leaning back against the far wall, her arms folded across her chest, dryly interjected, "The weird part is that after a few weeks in his company, the newbie would be well on her way to becoming a superior Slayer."

Another young woman seated in an armchair, an Asian the same age as the rest of the Slayers in the back of the room, smiled as she spoke in accented English, "Plus, she'd now be able to snark with the best of them."

There was soft feminine laughter in the room by every woman there, save for Christine, who bewilderedly stared at them all, Slayers and others.

Faith only chuckled more deeply at seeing Christine's surprised look on her beautiful face. "Yeah, ya woulda thought of the first thing right away, that you're here 'cause you're one fine fox? Uh-huh. Oh, Xander woulda been affected, sure, just like any man who ain't a friend of Dorothy. Hell, you know damn well you'd give a fuckin' statue a woody. But, lemme tell ya a secret. Xander don't care. He'll see ya as ya are, and if that person's okay, he'll be cool with ya. Ya know how fuckin' rare that is?"

Christine blinked at what the increasingly profane woman before her was saying, and how the other women there were nodding in agreement. Her thoughts whirling, she concentrating on listening to what Faith was telling her, as the brunette went on. "I told ya, it's okay to make a move on Xander. Not that ya HAD to, just that he's free of anybody's claim on him. Ya wanna do it or not, it's up to ya. Just two things: ya ever hurt him, yer gonna pay. Two, if he turns ya down, he'll do it in the nicest manner possible. And most important durin' that, he won't be afraid of ya. Not of ya bein' a Slayer, not of ya lookin' like a fuckin' angel, and I ain't talkin' 'bout you-know-who."

The Frenchwoman stood there, a wondering look on her features, as Faith concluded her lecture, with its somewhat puzzling finale. As every woman anxiously watched Christine, they saw various emotions pass over her face, and all there felt their hearts lifting, as the European Slayer finally looked around, a faint smile on her lips, as she courteously inquired, "What if he….'makes a move'….on moi?"

A relieved sigh rustled through the air of the room, as Faith gave a fierce grin right into the face of Christine, and growled, "If he does, ya do what ya wanna do, go for it, or not. But, keep in mind, what somebody else shoulda fuckin' told me, if that happens, ya'll be the luckiest damn bitch in the world."

* * *

Several weeks later, driving down the autobahn, Christine de Villaine stifled a sigh, knowing that despite seemingly lost in his thoughts in the passenger seat next to her, Xander Harris would have noticed any overt signs of depression and he would have been concerned for her. That merely made it worse.

Hopefully, in the future, there was going to be some very special woman to share her life with Xander, but it wasn't going to be Christine.

Despite all the immense respect and liking she'd developed in the past few weeks for the man sharing the car with her, there was simply….no spark. Her entire body felt a pang of heartache as she finally accepted this, trying to divert her hurting to paying more attention to the German highway they were on, headed towards Berlin to where Xander would end his vacation and take a flight back home, to America.

After a few more minutes of driving, Christine became lost in her memories of their time together. Two very special ones stood out among them all.

* * *

In a small café in Provence where they'd shared a very excellent lunch, while finishing her meal, Christine had become conscious that Xander was paying attention to something behind her. Her Slayer senses hadn't informed her there was anything to be concerned about, so she had idly turned in her seat to look where Xander was watching. A moment later, Christine's face showed puzzlement.

At where her charge was directing his gaze, there was just….a family at their own table in the café. All French, Christine knew at once, but nothing particularly strange or different about them. A man in his late twenties, a slightly harassed pretty woman the same age, with that one holding an infant in her lap and smoothing that child's hair, as she watched with a smile the man dipping a piece of bread in his wineglass and then feeding the tidbit to a girl toddler seated next to him, who emitted a shriek of glee and waving of her small fists after gulping down her father's gift.

Christine looked back in bewilderment at Xander, with her confusion only increasing into concern at seeing the immense sadness and longing on the one-eyed man's face.

* * *

In the car, Christine clutched the steering wheel and hurriedly diverted her memories from when she'd witnessed a man's private thoughts. Another recollection arose in her mind, a more happier one.

* * *

From where they were crouched in the grass, watching the demons dance around their sacrifice tied to a stake in the small hollow below them, Christine stirred, glancing over at Xander intently staring at the ceremony, waiting for his orders. They weren't what she expected at all.

"Christine, stay here. I'm going down there. Whatever happens, come only if I yell for you."

"WH--aaat?!" Her shriek of surprise changed into a disbelieving hiss, to keep the monsters in front of them unaware of their presence.

"No time to explain. Just do it, okay?" At that, Xander got to his feet and began walking down the hill towards the demons. There was no way he could have possibly seen or heard her take a step after, yet he whirled around, to softly snarl, "That's an ORDER, Slayer!"

Christine froze, held immobile by the sheer power blazing from the man's right eye. She jerkily nodded, and knelt down again in the grass, as Xander turned around and continued his trip to seemingly confront the demons on his own, which could only end in a hopeless battle and the man's death.

It was only when the man came into the small bare circle in the middle of the hollow where the ceremony was talking place, that the demons noticed him. Jerking to a halt their wild gyrations in their dance, the light of the full moon at its apex above them all clearly showed, first sheer astonishment, and then pure rage on the monstrous faces of the fiends. Mouths opened to show fangs ready for tearing into flesh, and clawed hands rose, as hulking creatures crowded forward, all towards their puny human intruder, ready for maiming and murder.

Standing easily right at the edge of the circle, the number one fan of Hostess products just grinned, and jovially called, "Hey, guys, glad to meet you all. What say we trade names? I'll start first. You can call me Alexander LaVelle Harris, but only if you want to get on my bad side. A lot more people just know me as Xander."

At the very front of the monsters advancing towards this idiotic human was clearly the leader of them all, a being nine feet tall of sheer ugliness, wider than a barn door and with more muscles than the entire cast of the WWF. During all of Xander's cheerful greeting, this demon had been angrily growling at the man, until the last name had been spoken. Then, the demon had abruptly become silent, stiffening into total immobility. A few moments later, the demon carefully leaned down, to peer into the face of the man with an eye patch looking up with total amusement.

"Xander? The One Who Sees? Friend of the Slayer? Brother of Red Witch? Total Bad-Ass Dude?" All of the questions had been asked by the demon, not in the ferocious rumble that anyone would have expected, but instead in a voice that was nothing but a pitiful whine.

"Don't know about the last, but, yeah, I been called all the rest," casually answered Xander, bringing up his right hand to inspect his fingernails, and then he polished these on the front of his jacket.

The demon in front of Xander straightened up, let his body fall backwards to land with an immense thump! on his butt with his legs forward, slumped his shoulders to let his clawed hands dangle to the ground, and promptly burst into tears.

Several minutes later, Xander handed back Christine's knife after cutting free the sacrifice, a now-unconscious man that both lowered to the ground. The one-eyed man pulled out a small clear glass bead from his pocket and held it against the former captive's forehead. The bead promptly vanished, accomplishing its task of wiping any memories of the past few hours and keeping the man from telling the entire world about his experiences.

Xander straightened up, ignoring the huddle of demons all sitting on their behinds several yards away and peering with frightened eyes at the Watcher and his Slayer. Instead, the man cocked his head and listened with interest, turning around to look at the top of the wooded hill they'd been a few minutes before. Crashing and crunching noises now emitted from that position, with two mature trees abruptly falling to the ground, as they were pushed away by the presence looming there.

A thirty-foot demon towered in the moonlight, its gnarled and warty face giving a massive sniff as it looked down with glittering eyes at all there awaiting it. Only a few steps were necessary for the massive demon to reach the circle, and stop by the group of smaller demons, as it looked down at all of the lesser fiends.

An arm the thickness of the cables holding up the Golden Gate Bridge flashed downwards, and the hand at the end of this arm pinched its cleaver-sized claws around the tip of the ear of the leader of the sacrificial ceremony, hauling this demon up to its feet with total ease, and ignoring the smaller monster's agonized howl caused by this.

One more step was made by the immense demon, dragging the smaller one after it still by its ear, to hold that prisoner forward in front of a waiting Xander. Now, for the first time, the gigantic demon spoke, causing small rocks on the ground to shiver.

"Tell him you're sorry."

When the rumbling echo finally died away, the smaller demon, keeping its eyes sheepishly directed to the ground, where his right foot was embarrassedly digging a toe into the soil, muttered, "S…sorry, mom."

At that, Big Bad Mama let go, with the smaller demon whirling around to scuttle off, its escape being hastened by a tremendous swat from his mother on his butt that sent the young demon sailing through the air in a graceful twenty-foot arc that ended in a landing on top of his brothers, producing yelps and howls of "Get off!"

The mother of all of the naughty demons ignored this, instead looking down at the small figure before her, and saying with respectful gratitude, "Thank you for not harming my children, White Knight."

Xander Harris, standing next to a dumbfounded Slayer, just shrugged, and cheerfully said, "Hey, no problem. Just make sure they don't do it again, okay?"

The enormous demon's head slowly turned around to beadily stare at its offspring, all who froze in absolute terror, as a final statement was uttered in maternal grimness, "Oh, you can be sure of THAT!"

* * *

Much later, in the car, a smile played around the lips of Christine over this memory, as she tried to distract herself over Xander's strange behavior today. During all this morning, when they'd been at breakfast and also checking out of the hotel, the man had warily eyed every single person who was near. Christine had soon become concerning, asking, "Is something wrong?"

"No, not kinda," absently muttered Xander, looking around the hotel parking lot. "It's just that….well, today is the reason why I made sure I spent my vacation in Europe this year. Not back home, not in Ireland, or anywhere in the land of tweed, or in the Balkans…. After a lot of thought, I picked France -- even though she was named that, I really don't think it matters…" Xander's voice trailed off, as he glanced over at Christine's bewilderment. He smiled at her, and stepped off towards their rental car, calling over his shoulder, "Never mind, it's all good. Let's go."

Christine walked after, trying to decipher why her friend was worried about le premier Avril.

She'd come up with no answers in their several hours of driving, while Xander was lost in his thoughts. Perhaps she would ask at the next rest stop….

"STOP THE CAR!"

Xander Harris top-of-the-lungs scream blasted into Christine's ears. Only fine German engineering kept the Slayer from shoving the brake pedal through the car floorboards, and it was fortunate the Mercedes had anti-lock brakes, as the vehicle laid down rubber for several hundred feet as it screeched to a shuddering stop at the side of the autobahn.

With perfect comedic timing, all of the interior air bags inflated.

Several moments later, the pair in the car fought their way out of the deflating protective flexible bags, both staggering from the car after fumblingly opening the doors. Christine leaned against the driver's side of the car and looked blearily over the roof, at where a dazed Xander stared back, a large lump arising in the middle of his forehead and a trickle of blood coming from his nose. The stunned Slayer began to ask, "Ce qui….pourquoi….?"

As a delivery truck rumbled past them on the autobahn, honking its horn at the pair by their car, Xander ignored this, his eye widening at Christine in utter horror, as he once again yelled at full volume.

"DAWN!"

Right after that, Xander spun and ran at full speed away from the car, down the highway towards an unknown goal.

Christine remained by the car, frantically pulling her cellphone from her pants pocket. It was a very special phone, given to her by Willow Rosenberg, along with specific code words for just about any eventuality. The Slayer tapped the bright red button on the face of the cellphone, barking into this, "Scooby Gang Code Red! White Knight protocols! Locate and verify safety of Dawn Summers!"

Once she'd finished with that warning, Christine followed after Xander at her full Slayer speed, running down the side of the highway while still holding her cellphone in one hand. She caught up with Xander about half a kilometer later, where he'd stopped at the autobahn side, spinning around in frantic circles, as he desperately stared in all directions.

The French Slayer skidded to a stop at Xander's side, as he ignored her in his presumed search for the younger Summers sister. Christine also worriedly glanced around, using all her Slayer senses, but she found no trace of Xander's friend. The only thing that was slightly odd was lying on the ground by them, a piece of cardboard with writing scrawled on it, undoubtedly left behind by some hitchhiker who'd been successful in getting a ride.

From the cellphone Christine was gripping so hard that only a spell laid on it by the Red Witch kept the mobile intact, a frenetic woman's voice wailed, "Xander! Xander! What's going on?! Why is every Slayer in the castle in my office--QUIT SHOVING! You, get your butt off those sixteenth-century scrolls! Xander, goddamn it, talk to me!"

The named man himself lunged right at the phone, and he might have actually torn it from Christine's grip if she hadn't promptly let go. Xander held the phone to his mouth, and with a haggard light in his right eye, he gasped, "Dawn, I want you to think very carefully about this, and to tell me the absolute truth. It's really, really important, you got that?"

"…..Y--yes, Xander," quavered the young woman struck with total fear back in Scotland.

Xander Harris took a deep breath, trying to control his pounding heart, and carefully recited his question.

"At this exact moment, are you wearing a purple bra?"

There was absolute silence right after that. Even the wind stopped blowing.

From where she'd been standing next to Xander, anxiously watching him, Christine now spun around and headed back to their car at her fastest run. Skidding to a stop at the rear of their vehicle, the Frenchwoman didn't bother with her keys or the trunk release switch inside the car. Her fingers shot out, to grip the edges of the top of the trunk, and the woman ripped the entire piece of metal off. There wasn't time for anything else, when she absolutely had to get to the emergency supplies in the trunk compartment, also provided by the Red Witch.

A few moments later, Christine returned to Xander's side, her bootheels smoking from her dead stop, as the man himself stood by the side of the autobahn. He was holding the cellphone as far away from him as he could, his fingers pinched around it, with his arm extended straight out, and the rest of his entire body cringing away from the voice coming from the mobile.

An absolutely enraged female was screaming at the top of her lungs in multiple human and demon languages, all of this curses and invectives, including some that were previously thought unpronounceable by a human throat. The liquefying roadway asphalt developing at the spot right below the cellphone now showed this to be false.

Not paying all that much attention, Christine's fingers frantically worked with what they were holding, and as Xander now became conscious of her presence, she finished unwrapping her possession to reach out to grab his chin and pull it down. As the man's eye widened and he took in a deep breath to demand the reason for her action, Christine de Villaine shoved deep into his mouth sideways an entire Twinkie.


	6. Conclusion

A being impassively watched a scene far below on the material plane.

Along a roadway, a mortal sank to his knees, dropping a small object he'd been holding, to now clutch at his throat with both hands.

Behind this man stood a woman, a panicked look on her beautiful features, as she swung her arm in a tremendous blow to pound hard on his back. A clump of yellowish-white substance shot out of the man's mouth, accompanied by a tiny metallic object that glittered as it spun in the air before dropping to the ground.

Xander Harris wasn't yet truly down for the count, but he was suffering the familiar daze usual to those who'd been punched by Slayers momentarily forgetting just how strong they were compared to normal humans. Instead of maintaining his posture on his knees, it seemed much easier to just….relax.

The former Sunnydale resident fell forward onto his face, and as his head bounced against the asphalt, Xander dreamily noticed on the ground a foot away, just before passing out, the filling that a few seconds ago had been comfortably resting in his left upper molar.

In a place far beyond the human world, a hand was waved, and the absurd scene shimmered out of existence, revealing in the distance the splendid cloudscapes that made up all of this location. Determinedly fixing his gaze on these familiar insubstantial edifices, an extremely stressed being struggled to compose himself. A raucous guffaw was not exactly going to help express the desired message of sternly reproving someone over their actions which had lead to all this.

To buy himself some more time before fixing his attention on the culprit, the being let his gaze rove around his surroundings and felt a pang of bemusement once again overtake him. Over the last century or so, this whole setting had changed itself on its own, to match the expectations of those who had left behind their past lives to continue to the next phase of their existence.

While he allowed the environs gave the newcomers a certain amount of comfort and reassurance, he who had been born Simon, son of John, had certainly not expected all this when long ago he had been peacefully mending his nets on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, only to suddenly be informed he was now a fisher of men. The gatekeeper seated at his workplace mused that his former earthly home in no way resembled this current location, with the high stone walls behind him and the now-open pearly gate, and the combined chair and high desk standing before the entrance, with a massive tome opened at a certain name inscribed in this volume resting on top of that piece of furniture.

Saint Peter, who would have been quite content to never again hear the phrase 'New Yorker cartoon', peered over his admissions desk, lowered massive eyebrows in a stern frown directed at the one standing before him, and demanded in a forbidding voice, "What exactly was the purpose of all that?"

"Shock therapy?" meekly offered Anya.

An oppressive silence descended, as Saint Peter coolly eyed the angel before him nervously twisting the ball of her right foot in her sandal against the misty ground, as it were actually solid. The female angel's dazzling white robes matched her magnificent wings sprouting from her back, which were gently fluttering in an anxious shiver. Anya refused to look up from her embarrassed gaze at her feet, keeping her head down, with her previously pure golden halo now shining a delicate pink, matching her absolute mortification.

She was totally adorable, and he certainly wasn't going to tell her that.

As Saint Peter reflected on this, a forlorn mumble came, in the tone of a child desperately trying to delay the inevitable. "How'd you know it was me?"

Anya said this while still keeping her head down, so she missed the dry look that momentarily flashed over the gatekeeper's features. Saint Peter steadily maintained the uncomfortable silence there, as he mentally reviewed Anya's thoughtlessly dropped clues and reminders of her presence in her inexperienced meddling.

First year: ….it had been both strange AND nice to see Willow Rosenberg's exact double, looking just like his bestest bud in her first year of high school, when it was just him and her and Jessie, no Buffy, no Giles, no knowledge about the dark side of Sunnydale and the Hellmouth….. When they had all been innocent.

Second year: ….How about the fact that something bad has happened to every woman in my life since high school? ….True, Anya had casually chattered about things that would have curled Dr. Ruth's hair, but….well….that had been Anya. ….Listen, uh, I lost someone special to me years ago, and I'm still not over it.

Third year: ….and glorious cloudscapes in the bright blue sky…. ….as both people delighting in each other's company….

Fourth year: ……………0:)

Fifth year: ….She opened her angel's arms to the stranger in paradise, to tell me that I may be a stranger no more. ….There is no one to share his life? Nobody….here? ….He'll see ya as ya are, and if that person's okay, he'll be cool with ya. ….angel, and I ain't talkin' 'bout you-know-who.

A flicker of amusement went through the mind of the keeper of the keys, as he now decided not to increase the younger angel's chagrin by pointing out all her mistakes. Instead, he lifted a hand to place a finger against the name inscribed on the sheet of paper where the book on his desk was opened to, as the name momentarily glowed pure gold. Saint Peter then gruffly spoke to Anya, "All who enter the kingdom of heaven are known to me….as those who depart. Including those who do so totally without permission."

"I just wanted to make my Xander-snuggles happy!" Anya had snapped up her head to wail that sentence directly into the good saint's startled face. She desperately continued her defense in a rushing babble that would have been made in a single breath, if angels actually took a breath.

"He was -- is -- so, so sad! Over everything! Well, I just tried arranging things to get him out of his funk, having him meet people exactly like his friends and family, to get him to see that he still had people who loved him, and that he can love people! It was all done on April Fool's Day so that he'd just think something weird was happening to him, and not talk about it! When that only helped a little, even when I was planning more, I came up with nudging him into being with the Slayers on his working--" Anya abruptly stopped, as she quailed before Saint Peter's jerking up in his chair, sitting straight at attention as that elder angel stared at the golden-haired angel in total astonishment as he caught a very important word in her earnest justification.

"MORE?!"

This bellow from the angel before her paralyzed Anya, especially when that being's bushy eyebrows slammed together in infuriated exasperation directed right at her.

P.G. Wodehouse once wrote a classic line of literature describing a man possessing "the sort of eye that can open an oyster at sixty paces." At that exact moment, the gatekeeper of Heaven was giving the younger angel before him a Look that was making every bivalve worldwide stir nervously in its ocean bed.

Gritting his teeth, Saint Peter chopped out the words, "What. Did. You. Do?"

"I didn't do anything yet! I was just getting things ready, because you have to make reservations at that place really far in advance, even for a non-holiday like April First…."

Under Saint Peter's gimlet stare, the oysters, mussels, and clams all together were preparing to perform a triple back somersault with a half-twist, hopefully sticking the landing flawlessly and getting perfect marks from all the judges, even the obdurate Russian official.

Still, a thousand years as a vengeance demon meant Anya possessed enough backbone to keep talking, as she muttered, "I was just going to have the Scoobies take Xander out to an expensive dinner at a fancy restaurant on that day, that's all!"

"And….?" Saint Peter left his question hanging, full well intending the use of that specific adjective in what was usually accompanied by a noose.

"Well, uh, their dinner would arrive burned, so they'd complain, and go to see the chef in the kitchen...." Anya winced inside at her last babble, and she hoped her intent listener had missed what was really important--

"Whom exactly would be the chef there at that restaurant during that specific visit by Mr. Harris and his friends?"

Oops. What made it even worse was that he'd managed to use perfect grammar in asking that question. Anya stood frozen for a few more moments, until her posture slumped in total defeat, and she mumbled a man's name.

Saint Peter looked off into the distance, his eyes half-closed, as he used his angelic powers to identify the specific human Anya had just named. A moment later, his eyes widened and a look of shock passed over the divine being's features. Shaking his head sorrowfully, the angel said, "Child, child, there would have been….consequences over your actions. You have truly disobeyed--"

"But it wouldn't have happened if only things had worked with Xander and Christine!" Anya stared at her superior, worried bewilderment on her features, as she fervently continued. "I don't understand! She was absolutely perfect for him! A fine Slayer, someone who could take care of themselves, one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen in all my life -- every year of it -- and despite it all, she's a nice girl! But nothing happened!"

A deep sigh was heaved by the distressed angel sitting at his desk, as he chided the woebegone offender, "You tried to create love where there was none, Anya. Not even we angels may do that."

Anya stared at the compassionate elder for a few moments, and then two large tears appeared at the corners of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. As the appalled saint watched, Anya then abruptly sat down on the floor of the cloudscape and stared blankly ahead of her, only then choking out her next words in the grip of the emotion that Heaven truly cannot bear. Despair.

"I think a mistake was made, choosing me to be this. I….I….hurt a lot of people when I was a demon, and even before and after that, when I was a human, I wasn't that much better. And now, I abused my powers." As Saint Peter listened in frozen horror, Anya finished, looking at the highest in heaven's favor with utter desolation on her face, as she hopelessly said, "I don't deserve to be an angel."

Another angel's lips began to open to offer hurried comfort and kindness, only for this to be unnecessary.

ANYA CHRISTINA EMMANUELLA JENKINS, YE WHO WERE ANYANKA, AND BEFORE THAT THE HUMAN CHILD AUD, YE HAVE SHOWN SINCERE REPENTENCE OVER THY SINS. IN THE PROCESS OF SEEKING A TRUE LOVE FOR SOMEONE IN THY PAST LIFE, THOU HAST DEMONSTRATED WORTHY ATONEMENT AND EXPIATION. THOU WILT NOW SERVE PENANCE FOR THY MINOR TRANSGRESSIONS, BUT ALWAYS KNOW THIS:

THOU ART LOVED, ANGEL.

As the rumbles of the pronouncement of the One Above All faded among the cloudscapes that seemed to gleam more brightly, Saint Peter leaned against the back of his chair and with a look of joyous veneration in his eye, he chuckled, "Anya, I believe that should relieve your fears, mmm?" Glancing at where the blonde angel had been sitting, a eyebrow was raised in faint surprise at seeing nothing there and hearing soft weeping. *Ah*, wisely nodded the saint, knowing this was probably the first time she'd ever borne the full attention of the All-Highest.

The seated angel leaned forward to look over the edge of his desk and saw what he'd expected. Anya was now lying prostrate on the ground and crying tears of adoration and delight. Saint Peter watched her in kindly patience for a few moments, until he urged, "You may rise, child."

Anya finally struggled to her feet, to wipe away her tears and stare resolutely at her superior. Her expression now of calm contentment meant she had taken the message from her Lord to heart. Which was just as well, as there would now be judgment.

"Anya," rumbled Saint Peter, "Despite your good intentions, you were not given permission to interfere in the lives of your past companions. As a consequence, you are now denied any further involvement whatsoever with the….Scoobies." A shaggy head was wonderingly shaken over having to say that last word at all.

A panicked look came over Anya's face, and she opened her mouth to protest, only to abruptly close this at Saint Peter's stern gaze. He went on, seemingly unaffected by the quivering of her lower lip. "It seems that you do need to be given some sort of task, lest you be led into temptation. So, I am assigning you to work with another angel, a supervisor in earthly intercessions. This angel, Monica, is a wis-- more experienced in these matters than you, and it will be her duty to teach you to more effectively assist humans in their problems. Just as it will be your duty to pay the closest of attention to your teacher."

At that, Saint Peter looked off thoughtfully to the side, evidently considering how these words had been received by his restive listener. Actually, he'd turned his face to hide the faint grin twitching at the corner of his concealed lips. Monica, the newly appointed teacher, was now going to learn just what it was like to have an angel working for her innocently creating absolute chaos. It was time she understood the phrase, "what goes around, comes around."

"But, sir!" urgently said Anya, bringing the saint's attention back to her, her pleading expression revealing what she was going to say. "What about Xander?! Doesn't he deserve to find love? Please, I just want him to be helped--"

She was cut off by Saint Peter's hand raised in a majestic gesture of shushing. A compassionate glance was given Anya, but the gatekeeper's voice was firm, as he said, "All things come to pass, Anya. Trust in our Lord."

Anya lowered her eyes in submission, as her worried features finally relaxed into acceptance. At this, Saint Peter smiled, and as his hand waved in a signal that the meeting was over, he kindly said, "It will be well….angel."

Anya vanished, to go to her new duty.

For several moments after her departure, Saint Peter stared ahead into the cloudscape distance. He needed to go back to his own tasks, but there was something….what he'd learned in his time as a far older angel than Anya. Rubbing his chin thoughtfully, the saint then waved his hand in another mystical gesture, as another scene from the earthly environs appeared before him.

Putting her cellphone back in her jeans pocket after arranging her flight to Berlin, a fuming Dawn Summers stalked over to her bedroom closet to pull out her suitcase, and then she tossed that piece of luggage onto the bed. As the furious woman headed for her drawer to get her clothes for the coming trip, her irate mutterings under her breath finally became intelligible.

"Stupid, stupid man! He drags me from work, scares me half to death, and for what? I've been basically waving myself under his nose for years, and now he's noticed me, but the only way he can show it is by making a prank call on April Fool's? Just to ask me about my bra? What is he, five years old?"

Dawn paused in front of her opened top drawer, with an armful of clothes, and then she whirled around to hurl her blouses, pants and other garments, one after the other, as hard as she could, in a paroxysm of rage aimed directly at the suitcase. Her vastly-amused unseen watcher was quite sure she had an entirely different target in mind, that of a certain male human's frantically ducking head. Her next words proved him right, as the younger Summers sister screamed at the top of her lungs.

"YES, HE IS! THEY ALL ARE!"

Standing in the middle of her bedroom, swaying, and clenching her crooked fingers as if in practice for sinking her nails into the cowering flesh of a male nincompoop, Dawn unseeingly glared at a bedroom wall, and hissed, "Xander, Hurricane Dawn is headed your way, and the only thing you can do is dive for cover, kiss your butt goodbye, and pray for mercy! With any luck, I'll actually think of providing that on our fiftieth wedding anniversary!"

At her last words, the woman blinked, and her face smoothed in astonishment at what she'd said for the first time ever, finally vocalizing her deepest hopes and desires.

Taking in several deep breaths, a thoughtful Dawn then walked again to her drawer, closing the open top compartment and bending down to pull open the bottom one. From the very back of this, she took a plain brown package, tearing off its wrappings to reveal one of the most heart-stopping creations from Victoria's Secret, a matching minuscule bra and panties set, crafted from sheer silk and a pale blue in color.

She spent a few moments rubbing her fingers against the texture of the silk panties, enjoying the slick smoothness, before setting the bottom half of the lingerie set on top of the drawer. Dawn then held up the wisp of a bra in both hands in front of her body at chest level, smirking at her image in the drawer mirror. Staying in that posture, she then cooed in her most evil tone at her reflection, "So, Alexander LaVelle Harris, you wanted to know about my bra? Well, tonight in your hotel room, you're going to come back after a hard night of Slaying, to find me in your bed, dressed in just this! And that night's going to end in only two ways: with a marriage proposal, or your cooling corpse!"

It was at that point that an angelic hand waved, causing the image of a beautiful, sexy, confident, and very determined young woman to vanish, while Saint Peter then leaned back in his chair, and roared with laughter for a very long time.

Eventually, his amusement diminished to deep chuckles, which abruptly stopped, as the angel's face became blank at being struck by a sudden thought. He was more than certain of the hilarious results of the Key's coming encounter with the White Knight, yet that event might led to certain….problems. Involving a certain young angel who'd just been in his presence.

The holder of the keys to the kingdom sighed, as he contemplated a bridesmaid at a coming wedding suddenly having a stomach upset, with her place taken by a joyous blonde, which nobody could remember seeing before or if she was with the bride or groom's family. Not to mention the inherent unfairness of angelic wings being used to help that bridesmaid soar into the air to catch the tossed bridal bouquet. Even with an entire wedding party used to strange events, things like that tended to raise people's eyebrows.

The elder angel's thoughtful face suddenly widened in a happy smile, and he now leaned back in his chair, bringing his hands together to interlock across his stomach, as Saint Peter began to contently twiddle his thumbs. After all, it would be totally unjust to deny Anya a chance to attend a wedding she'd done her best to craft, though it wasn't the pair she'd had in mind. Still, an escort would be necessary to keep an eye on that blissful former demon and make sure she didn't accidentally reveal herself or act in a manner unfitting for an invited granddaughter and her still-spry elderly relation.

Saint Peter quite liked weddings. All aspects of these ceremonies, from "Dearly beloved…" to "You may kiss the bride." Receptions also had their good points, with the dancing, kissing all the pretty girls there, and the chance for a slice of the wedding cake. Though, a being who'd existed when those weapons had actually been used never exactly understood the symbolism of a sword being used to cut the culinary confection. To him, it made just as much sense as using an axe to stir your soup.

*Oh, well. Time to get back to work.* The angel leaned forward to open his book to a blank section, and then he paused. Saint Peter shivered slightly, as he considered another event that could have happened, but most thankfully, it had not taken place.

True, it was somewhat….remotely….possible that if Anya's last scheme had occurred, Seth Richmann, a pastry chef at the exclusive restaurant known as Nolita, who already had enough stress in his life from having to tolerate a wild man like executive chef Jack Bourdain, might have equably dealt with encountering in the restaurant kitchen his absolutely identical double, save for that man having only one eye, and his twin's accompanying and extremely suspicious family. In the middle of a kitchen possessing a great many razor-sharp cutting implements, assorted pots and vats filled with boiling liquids, and most worrying, a rack of pies baked and set out to cool for tonight's desserts by Seth. Apple, blueberry, and cherry pies, all slathered with heaping whipped cream. Fresh, juicy, aerodynamic pies with maximum-possible delicious splatter.

Just before going back to his chosen task, the gatekeeper to Heaven contemplated how fortunate it was that Xander Harris would never meet Mr. Richmann, especially since it was a total certainty that Faith Lehane would have been the one to throw the first pie.

At that very moment, Saint Peter's thoughts on this were joined by an omniscient Eternal Presence, as both uttered a solemn

AMEN.

* * *

Author's Notes: In case you don't know the crossovers in the previous chapters, the following information is given:

First Year: "My Stepmother Is An Alien" (1988) - A snoozer of a comedy, in which Dan Aykroyd plays a scientist that unknowingly contacts aliens from outer space (what, you thought the title referred to someone looking for a green card?), who send an emissary to find out why someone downstairs did the equivalent of thumping a broom handle against the ceiling below their floor. Said emissary disguises itself as Kim Basinger in an attempt to remain inconspicuous among humans, and hilarity ensues. Or so the filmmakers presumably intended. Worth watching by Buffy fans only due to this being Alyson Hannigan's first film role, plus in the movie, her character's boyfriend is played by Seth Green. No, his name isn't Oz.

Second Year: "Sex and Breakfast" (2007) - It's a strange world when the above film is more logical than this so-called realistic drama. First, when watching, you have to suspend your disbelief that a guy would have relationship problems with someone looking like Eliza Dushku, and second, that this couple could persuade themselves a solution to their difficulties lies in swapping partners with another pair having trouble with their own sex lives. Ooookay. Unfortunately, the slightest trace of believability flies out the window when the other guy in the bed-hopping incident is Macaulay Culkin. Yeah, Mr. Home Alone himself, seventeen years later. Seeing him in a love scene with Faith Lehane reaches a level of surreality comparable only to having "Jurassic Park" remade with Barney the Dinosaur as the main running-amok creature and witnessing every human actor being chowed-down in purple jaws.

Third Year: "Gold Blend®/Taster's Choice® Coffee Ads" (1987-1993/1990-1997) - First run in Britain, and then in America, these were a series of ads showing various settings in which numerous soap-opera situations occurred (and always shot with a layer of gauze over the camera lens) with a man and a woman professing their undying love for each other. For some reason, steaming cups of a dark liquid were always in the scene. Since these ads kept being made, it was clear a lot of coffee was being sold, yet the profits evidently weren't going into the pockets of the actors in the commercials, otherwise Anthony Stewart Head wouldn't have arrived in California one day for a few weeks' work on a little television show based on a not very successful film with a weird title. God bless all corporate penny-pinching bastards.

Fourth Year: "I Only Eat At Burger King Ad" (1981) - Buffy dislikes the military due to little things like army experiments on demons and a relationship with a stuffed dummy whose name begins with "R". Sarah Michelle Gellar has good reasons for an equal level of loathing towards McDonald's lawyers, who couldn't take a little joke when a competing Burger King ad had a four-year-old Gellar reciting the mentioned line. It all wound up with the little tyke herself having to appear in court. (Honest!) Good thing there weren't any stakes around the courtroom, or there would have been fewer lawyers in existence. Hmmm. Maybe there SHOULD have been stakes.

Fifth Year: "Eurotrip" (2004) - Jenny, as played by Michelle Trachtenberg, just thought pulling up her shirt to flash the autobahn traffic was the surest way of getting somebody to pull over and give them a ride, when the group consisting of that girl and her friends became stranded after going broke during their European trip. How could she have possibly known that she was giving a one-eyed man in a car passing by at that very moment a nervous breakdown at seeing Dawn Summers acting that way?

Conclusion: "Kitchen Confidential" (2005) - The crossover that never happened. Jack Bourdain, a guy with an explosive personality, who was once a master chief now reduced to working in a pizza parlor has a chance again for success at working at an exclusive restaurant, if things go right. In real life, this television show didn't last very long, being cancelled after a few episodes, despite being a funny, fine program. Yet the horrible, done-to-death "According to Jim" has been on the air since 2001, with 175 episodes to date. Gaaaah. Oh, well, you can see the DVD with all the episodes and Nicholas Brendon's enjoyable acting. Check it out from Netflix.

Finally, the last crossover that started it all:

"Touched By An Angel" (1994-2003) - Even Monica, the angel on this television show who happily solves everyone's problems, might have wondered how Anya could get all the doubles of Xander's family into his presence, considering that they couldn't have possibly existed all at the same time, given their appearances in various films and other media over a span of twenty-five years. Taking into account the often dubious logic given for the actions of those celestial characters on the show that now includes a former vengeance demon, there's a simple answer for Anya's accomplishments:

She's an angel.

Man, I love easy explanations like that.


End file.
